A Change In The Winds
by LordArrogantXVII
Summary: A retelling of Naruto: Shippuden, post-Sasuke v. Itachi, with a focus on Sasuke, and slightly modified to give Sasuke human emotions and the power of thought. Rather than joining with "Madara," Sasuke decides instead to take his Taka and leave. Meanwhile, "Madara" and Pain plot their takeover.
1. Prologue

Unconscious in a bedroll lay a boy of about sixteen, perhaps seventeen, shirtless, clad in a dark purple waist wrap held up by a lighter purple rope-belt, black pants, and sandles. The boy opened his eyes, immediately taking in his surroundings. Darkness seemed to be the central design element here; a candle provided the only light in an otherwise shadowed cave. Some boxes, haphazardly stacked, supported the flickering candle. The boy lay in a bedroll. He sat up, and became immediately aware of a searing headache, and a dull pain throughout his body, although not nearly as bad as it had been before he passed out.

_"Sorry, Sasuke, but this is it…_" _Itachi Uchiha smiled as he at last fell, dead._

What had he meant? Itachi was a traitor, and hated him, right? The boy, Sasuke, shook his head, attempting to clear his thoughts.

"Good. You're alive. I'll admit; I was a bit worried." Sasuke immediately jumped to his feet, but in his weakened state found himself on his knee, clutching his shoulder. "Easy there, boy, you'll do yourself no favors if you exert yourself now." The speaker, a man in an orange mask and a black coat with red cloud patterns, stepped into the dim candlelight.

"You? Just who are you, anyway?" Sasuke reached for his sword, only to find it wasn't at his hip where it should be.

"If you wish to know… then allow me to explain."

For what seemed like hours, the masked man spoke at length of the legendary Madara Uchiha, of how he survived and came to lead Akatsuki, of how he was approached by Itachi to assist in his slaughter of the Uchiha clan, of how Itachi really loved Sasuke and was ordered to kill the clan. Madara paused briefly after recounting his tale, before concluding: "Sasuke… the Leaf ordered the massacre of the Uchiha clan. Join with me, and avenge your clan against those who _really_ led to its undoing!"

Sasuke sat, his chin resting on his left hand, right still at his hip where his sword should be. After but a moment's hesitation, he at last spoke. "No. I refuse. You wait and tell me this after Itachi dies? Convenient for you. Itachi's out of the way, unable to offer his story, his confirmation or denial. And you said yourself… you assisted the massacre of my clan, my family. That was your mistake. Had you not told me this, I may have fallen for your poison." Sasuke stood. "I'm leaving. You can try to stop me if you want, but it won't end well for you."

"Oh?" Madara sounded more amused than angry. "Even after I so graciously heal your wounds, tell you the truth of Itachi, and ensure your survival… you are so quick to abandon me?"

"Pretty much. Thanks for the healing, though." Sasuke moved past him. "And don't try charging me while my back is turned, or anything like that. Again, it won't end well for you."

And with that, Sasuke merely walked out. Madara made no move to stop him. "You'll find the door soon enough. It's not like I really need you for anything, so feel free to go."

Sasuke made his shaky way through the dark cave, moving along the only path within. After a time, moonlight began to shine, giving Sasuke a beacon to light his way. Eventually, he found himself staring at a clear night sky, a full, white moon serving as his guide. At the mouth of the cave, a massive sword appeared seemingly out of nowhere, stopping Sasuke in his tracks. "Suigetsu… put that away."

"Sorry, sorry… but I can't take my chances. You could be Sasuke, you could be that masked guy, doing a very passable imitation of Sasuke's voice… I gotta make sure."

"You dumbass! It's him, just let my Sasuke out of there!" A girl's voice, full of venom.

"What if it's Mask Guy, though?"

"It's not! The masked man had a different voice. I don't think he can imitate Sasuke's quite so well."

"But it could be!"

"It's not! Voices aside, they have totally different chakra!"

"He could fake it."

"HOW?!"

Sasuke, growing bored of hearing his teammates argue, simply ducked under the blade and stepped out of the cave. He gave Suigetsu, a white-haired, purple-eyed boy of about his age, a Look, that said "Damn it, man, let it go."

"So it's not," Suigetsu conceded, smirking. "Guess Karin has to be right sometimes, huh?"

Karin, a redheaded girl with the most unusual, asymmetrical hairstyle this world has ever known, and also glasses, smacked Suigetsu in the back of the head, only for her hand to pass harmlessly through it as he turned his head into water. "Dumbass."

A third boy, with messy orange hair, towered above Karin and Suigetsu. This was Jugo, another of Sasuke's team, called Hebi. Jugo remained silent, and for that Sasuke thanked him. Unlike the other two, Jugo spent most of his time in a calm, quiet state, although he had a tendency to go absolutely apeshit whenever threatened.

"I see you're all unhurt. That's good." Sasuke again moved to rest his hand on his sword, and again found himself grasping at nothing. "Before anything else, has anyone seen my weapon?"

Jugo reached into the folds of his cape/cloak/curtain and produced a sheathed weapon. "You dropped it in your fight with Itachi."

"Right." Sasuke slid the sword between two layers of his rope-belt, and rested his hand on the hilt. "Now that I'm not walking around unarmed, I have an announcement to make. As of this moment, the team known as Hebi is no more. Its goal is accomplished: revenge on Itachi."

Suigetsu raised his hand, mockingly imitative of a student in a classroom. "So I can go home then?"

"No. Though Hebi is no more, this team is staying together. Now, we are known as Taka. Our goal is… to be determined." As Suigetsu moved to raise his hand again, Sasuke cut him off. "Yes, Suigetsu, we can collect your swords if you really want them." Suigetsu lowered his hand. "Now then. Four was enough to track Itachi, but isn't enough for what I need now. So, to that end, we're moving towards the Land of Fire to recruit a fifth member."

Suigetsu raised his hand a third time. "Who the hell could we possibly recruit in the Land of Fire? Isn't that where your old village is? What could we possibly want there?"

"I hate to agree with Pond Scum, but he's right. There's not really much call for loyalty to Sasuke in that area, is there?" Karin asked.

"Not as such, no," Sasuke conceded, "but I have someone in mind. She's an ally of mine from way back. Orochimaru's spies confirmed her as a prisoner of war, being held by servants of the Daimyo and likely being pressed for information about Sound… and Orochimaru."

"Jolly. So we're going to save a prisoner of war from Snake Man's old village… why exactly?" Suigetsu proceeded to drink from his bottle of water.

"At the very least, to add an ally to our assets. Hopefully something more than that though. Now then… I'm done answering questions. Let's go."

With that, the four ninja, Taka, leapt off into the night.


	2. Chapter One: Nostalgia

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Updates are gonna be Thursdays, every other week. I'll try to stick to a regular schedule, but given various things it could be a bit irregular. Anyway, enjoy!

"This can end any time you want, you know." Cold, like ice, was the voice that woke her. "All we need is the smallest bit of information you can give us about Sound."

"G-go… fuck yourself," she replied weakly, as she always had. Tayuya normally would've made the effort to spit in his face, too, but today she was feeling less spirited than usual. She HAD just woken up from her latest foray into the world of being knocked out.

"Sigh. Such insolence has gotten you punished time and time again." Ibiki Morino, the Leaf's famed Inquisitor, leaned back in his chair across from the bound Tayuya. Her red hair was wild and unkempt, her own defiance against her captors, who had tried so hard to keep her groomed. For his part, Morino looked rather clean-cut for a shinobi, though his bandana and few visible scars gave him a rather intimidating countenance.

Tayuya wasn't scared, hell, she hadn't been since the beginning. He had tried to break her mind first. Didn't work. As part of the Sound Ninja Four, she had been trained to resist mental torture. Then had come the physical torture, and a laughably bad job they'd done at that. Leaf ninja were inept when it came to that kind of thing, pacifists that they were. Currently, Morino seemed to be on the "I-really-don't-care" stage of torture, and so stopped by every so often to beat her senseless and/or attempt to verbally mind rape her. It had become so very routine, Tayuya half expected the Leaf had made a sitcom of it.

"Heh… you're lazy, aren't you? Can't move beyond 'ask question, beat up, ask question, beat up?' There's more to an interrogation than that, you know: I have information you want. But you won't get it by just yelling like a fucknut and hitting little girls." Tayuya smirked triumphantly, or as much so as she could manage.

"Your pathetic mask isn't working, Tayuya," Ibiki said calmly. "Your act of control and calmness has been cracking for months now. You're scared, you're hurting, and you want this to end… and it can! Just tell us what you know about Orochimaru. About Sound. About the whereabouts of Sasuke."

"I told you! I don't know anything about Sasuke! Shit, you know more than I do by now, the last time I saw him we were stuffing him into a barrel! I fucking told you! I don't know anything you don't already know!"

Ibiki backhanded her. "You must know SOMETHING! You were part of his elite fighting force; you can't just be a blind minion! Something, anything! How did he make the Curse Marks? What are they? Why did he want Sasuke?"

"How the fuck should I know? Maybe he was a goddamn pedophile and wanted to fuck him?!" Another backhand, stronger this time. "I don't fucking know anything!" Tayuya's self-assurance visibly crumbled as tears began to stream down her face. "I've told you everything I know, just fucking let me go!"

"You're lying, I can tell. You're the one that can end this, Tayuya. If you just tell me what you're hiding…"

"Go fuck yourself," Tayuya growled as she spit in Ibiki Morino's face. Morino backhanded her a third time and simply walked out of her cell. Once at last the footsteps faded, Tayuya hugged her knees and began to cry softly.

* * *

"So, boss-man. Did you… you know… have a PLAN on how to get this new ally of ours out? And, if so, what the hell is it? Care to share with the class?" Suigetsu looked pleasant enough as he spoke, but Sasuke could tell he was getting annoyed.

Taka was walking in a loose formation, cloaked, deep in the woods surrounding the Leaf village. They moved fairly slowly, eschewing the apparent tradition of hopping through trees to get around. Sasuke had said that a slower, more measured approach would be less predictable.

"Actually, I'm just sort of making it up as I go along," Sasuke replied casually. "What, you honestly thought I planned anything?"

Suigetsu stopped in his tracks and stared, baffled, at his leader. "You're just making it up as you… as you go? How are you still alive?! I mean… you beat Orochimaru, Deidara, Itachi, that masked man…"

"Actually, Madara just kind of let me out and apparently Itachi was dying anyway. But yeah, all of my strategies just come to me out of the blue. Like now." Sasuke rapidly moved his hands, before transforming in a puff of smoke into a mid-thirties balding man. "We'll use transformation and just… walk in."

Karin slumped her shoulders. "Do you have to be… that… the whole time?"

"I think it's an improvement," Suigetsu said, smirking. "Better than the duck-butt hair."

"My hair looks nothing like a duck… never mind." Even in a body that wasn't his own, Sasuke's face remained perfectly expressionless. "Either way, since you three aren't well-known here, you can probably stay in your own bodies. I'm the only one that needs a disguise. Once we're inside, the main goal is intel gathering. We find as much as we can on where Tayuya is, or might be, and we build from there. Any questions?"

"Yeah, one," Suigetsu replied. "How long do you expect the disguise to work if you keep that pose?"

Sasuke looked down. Sure enough, his hand was resting where his sword was, invisible to those looking at him. After a moment of internal struggle, Sasuke moved his hand away from the weapon and adopted a more casual stance. "Nothing else? Then let's get moving."

As Sasuke turned and began walking, Karin shot Suigetsu a glare then skipped off after Sasuke. "Sasuke~! Wait for me!"

Jugo and Suigetsu exchanged glances and shrugged as they followed behind.

Sasuke paused at the entrance to Leaf. He stared at it, a million mixed emotions fighting for dominance within him. He settled on "none of the above."

"Sasuke! This is no time to reminisce!" Karin's voice broke his daze. "I know this is your home, but you have a mission right now." She grabbed his arm, blushing and smiling. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, _"And afterwards, you and me are gonna have some alone time, right?_"

Sasuke remained motionless. He mentally shook himself. _It _was_ your home, Sasuke, it isn't anymore._ Sasuke took a step into the Village Hidden in Leaves, and a rush of nostalgia hit him.

_Hey, screwup… To become Hokage is my dream!... If you're gone… to me… it'll be the same as being alone. Hello, students, today I got lost on the road of life… Foolish little brother… I am an avenger…_

"Sasuke?" Again, Karin shook him from his trance. "I said, do we split up, or stay together?"

After a moment, Sasuke responded with, "Split up. We'll cover more ground that way. We'll meet back here in two hours. Scatter!"

Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo split off, each dashing in a different direction. Sasuke, however, simply walked, taking in the sight of his old home. For a brief moment, regret for abandoning his home hit him, but Sasuke shook it off. He couldn't afford to regret, not anymore. It was far too late to return.


	3. Chapter Two: A Very Bad Decision

_(AN: I really don't want to write either Believe It or Dattebayo too often for Naruto. If that bothers you, tough. I'll use it sparingly, such as when he's obviously speaking quickly or too excited to think)_

As usual, Naruto Uzumaki sat in Ichiraku, devouring his second (maybe third) bowl of ramen with the ferocity and hunger of a particularly ravenous wolf. He finished it in under a minute and set it on his stack of bowls, and realized it was in fact his fourth bowl. "Ahhh! As good as ever!" he said to no one in particular. The owners, a father-daughter team, were out getting more ingredients for their ramen, and the restaurant was unusually empty for lunchtime, so Naruto sat alone. Not that he minded. As much as he loved crowds and company, he felt a strange urge to be alone.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he snapped his gaze towards the source: a middle-aged man, hair thinning, with a vaguely familiar look on his face. The man paused when he saw Naruto, then turned to leave.

"Hey! Hey! Get back here!" Naruto chased the retreating man. "You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?" The man made no move to reply, and simply walked determinedly away. Naruto glanced back at his empty (and unpaid for) bowls of ramen. _Sorry, Pops,_ he thought as he ran after the man, who moved remarkably quickly for such a geezer. Naruto grinned, and quickly went through the hand signs to summon a shadow clone. _I'll cut him off,_ he thought, a gleam in his eye. _Then I'll figure out who he is!_ The copy of Naruto appeared with a "poof" and immediately ran off, down a series of alleyways.

Naruto doubled his pace, grinning as he saw his copy appear in front of the man. "Hey, you!" it shouted. "Just who the hell are you, anyway?" The man showed no signs of slowing and in fact broke into a full sprint, shoving right past his clone, which vanished. He felt a sensation, briefly, of being cut through by a blade, which was odd. The man had no weapons… right? Maybe some kind of jutsu? "Hey, old man! Are you a ninja?" Naruto called to him. The man didn't reply.

* * *

_Why of all people did it have to be THAT idiot…?_ Sasuke thought as he tore through Naruto's clone with his sword. He supposed he was lucky it wasn't a Hyuuga, what with their byakugan and seeing through literally everything ever, but an old teammate was another hazard, especially _that_ one. His persistence would have been admirable if it weren't currently focused on (and pissing off) Sasuke.

_This is my fault, isn't it?_ he realized. _I went back to that damn ramen shop, god only knows why, and of course, there he is._ Sasuke turned swiftly down another alley, with, of course, Naruto following behind. This time, though, he abruptly changed course, and ran up the side of a house (no doubt startling the people inside as they saw an old man run up their window) and leapt off the roof. He naturally hit the ground running. This sort of fall was routine to him after his training.

Hoping his fast-thinking had saved him, he ducked behind a building, glancing over his shoulder behind him, praying not to see that orange bastard chasing him. He caught a brief glimpse of orange as Naruto ran past his hiding spot, shouting "Old man! Hey, old man!"

_What dumbass chases down a random old guy in the middle of the day anyway?_ Sasuke moved out of the building's shadow, and crashed directly into a familiar red-and-pink blur, stopping her in her tracks.

* * *

"Heh! Pretty sneaky of you!" Naruto whispered, seeing the mystery old man duck behind a building. He summoned another clone, which ran past the building, while he ducked around back, hoping to finally catch that old guy. Upon stepping into the alley, he noticed two things. The first: it smelled vaguely of poo. The second: that old guy was gone, not in the alley. He glanced behind him, and saw nothing more than a dead end. The other way, where the old guy had come in, was also empty, though he heard an "oof" from that end, although a strangely feminine one to come from a geezer.

Naruto ran after the sound anyway, figuring it may bring him the answers he wanted. At the end of the alleyway, he found Sakura and That Old Guy. Sakura had been knocked to the ground, and sat rubbing her head. That Old Guy was still standing, looking somewhere between baffled and worried.

"HA! Finally caught you, old man! Now, tell me who you are!" Naruto shouted as he ran at That Old Guy.

"Hey! Get the hell away from him, you dumbass!" Sakura stood up, giving Naruto the most annoyed look he'd ever seen. "What do you even think you're doing, chasing down old men in the streets?" She smacked Naruto in the back of the head before turning to That Old Guy. He tone did an abrupt shift as she asked, "Are you okay, sir?"

The old man opened his mouth, then immediately closed it. He nodded twice, then turned to walk away.

"Hey… you look kinda familiar. Have we met?" She reached an arm to touch his shoulder, and he pulled away, before turning and shaking his head. "Are you sure? I feel like I know you from somewhere."

"Yeah! That's what I thought, too! Then he just ran away from me, and I chased him and now we're here, dattebayo!"

"You moron! You're the one who chased an old guy down the streets in broad daylight! You're just lucky I saw you before you got in _real_ trouble!" Sakura never took her eyes off That Old Guy.

_Great,_ thought Naruto, _Now she's flirting with this old guy, too!_

Before he could voice his concern, a hand, gentle yet firm, gripped his shoulder. Naruto turned and saw Kakashi, his teacher, unmistakable with his silver hair, mask, and headband pulled over his left eye.

"Naruto, the fifth has requested to see you. Immediately."

* * *

Seeing through the eyes of another tends to ruin one's perspective, especially when seeing through the eyes of six. Nagato knew full well the sort of headaches that could cause, but it also afforded him a unique advantage that not even his teacher, Jiraya, could counter. He knew, because Jiraiya had lain dead at his feet, not so long ago. Well, not _his_ feet. To get technical, they were Yahiko's feet, but Yahiko's mind was Nagato's mind, and so Yahiko's feet were Nagato's. Nagato himself acted largely through Yahiko, or, to get technical again, Yahiko's corpse, as Nagato hung from a machine designed to keep him alive and safe. Yahiko was part of the will of Pain now, and it was through Yahiko's eyes that Nagato watched what passed for a sunset in the village of Rain.

"Still gloating, are you?" Madara Uchiha, still in his characteristic orange spiral mask, stepped from nowhere, as he seemed to do frequently. "You're normally not this reclusive."

"I am not gloating." Pain turned from him. "I am contemplating. His attempt on my life came so soon after your orders to attack the nine-tails. Is it possible that Jiraya had a spy on Akatsuki?"

"Had." Madara's one visible eye seemed to smile. "Itachi is taken care of."

"And his brother? You were intent on recruiting him, after all."

"Plans change, Nagat—Pain." Madara was taunting him again. He knew Nagato hated that name. He was, as far as anyone was concerned, Pain. "And you are not to pursue the nine-tails anymore. Call the remainder of Akatsuki here."

"Remainder? What do we have left?" Worry crept into Pain's usually emotionless voice.

"With Hidan, Deidara, Kakuzu, Sasori, and Itachi dead, and without the aid of Sasuke's little band, we are down to you, myself, Konan, Kisame, and Zetsu."

Pain paused a moment. Only five…? That wasn't enough. Five was enough to, maybe, defeat a single village. "I am also down to a mere five paths. Animal Path was slain by Jiraya."

"Speaking of," Madara said, laughing a little, "I have this." He produced a dead toad (bearded?!) from within the folds of his cloak and tossed it before Pain. Writing covered its back. "Seems he was trying to get a message through after you defeated him. Be more careful next time."

"How did you—"

"A lucky guess on my part," Madara replied, shrugging. "Zetsu caught it mid-summoning from Miyaboku and killed it before it could fully materialize."

"And why was he there, again?" Pain looked away from his leader, and found himself upset that he had missed the rest of the sunset.

"Observing Sasuke. It seems he's returned to Leaf, but is too shy to reveal this fact." Amusement crept into Madara's voice. "Seems he was a bit homesick."

"You should have killed him. He may be a threat to Akatsuki, now that he knows your identity."

"He's no threat. If he had a reason to hate me, he might have been. But we are side-tracked. Contact the rest of Akatsuki. Our meeting is to be today. We must discuss our plans, now that we are down to a mere five."

"And what of my Animal Path?"

"Make a new one. You _can_ do that, right?"

_"Arrogant old man_…_"_ Nagato muttered under his breath. "Indeed, but I need a body. And that could take days," he replied aloud as Pain.

"Lord Pain! A fresh body has been found for your new animal path!" A Rain ninja, a subordinate of Pains, burst into the room and blurted.

"Oh. Joy."

* * *

Sasuke thanked whatever good fortune had caused Kakashi to choose THAT instant to approach Naruto and Sakura. His old teacher had been exactly the distraction he needed to slip away. He made his way back to the gate, and, as expected, found Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo all waiting for him. Suigetsu was tapping his feet and leaning against his sword, Karin sat on the ground, reading a book, and Jugo was talking to a bird. He did that.

"What've you found?" Sasuke asked as he approached his new team.

"A whole lot of _nothing!_" Suigetsu groaned. "I learned that Leaf doesn't take kindly to giant weapons and so asked me to, ya know, sit here. Also that there are a pair of identical twins that appear to be about twenty years of age apart. That, or a son who looks TOO similar to his father. Either way, it's creepy."

Karin stood. "I also didn't get much. Apparently no one here knows where the Torture and Interrogation department keeps prisoners, nor do they know anything about a Sound prisoner here, and I can't really sense any familiar chakra. Seems like this was just a waste of ti—"

"They're keeping prisoners in a house not a quarter mile from here," Jugo cut in. "The basement is very large and distresses the moles that used to live there, and this bird saw them take a trio of criminals in fairly recently."

Sasuke stared briefly at Suigetsu and Karin, giving them a Look that plainly said "Really? Outclassed by the crazy?" before nodding at Jugo. "Well done. Can you lead us there, Jugo?"

Jugo nodded back. "Of course. This way."


	4. Chapter Three: Tayuya

_(AN: Wow, this is a long one compared to the rest... also, I suppose I lied about a regular schedule, though I'll try to keep at least one post per week. This week, I post two)_

Night had fallen on the Leaf village, painting everything in gray and shadow. Sasuke and Taka had hidden out a fair distance away from the house Jugo had taken them to, and had insisted countless times was the right place. The quartet at last slipped from hiding and approached the building.

"The plan is this," Sasuke whispered as he dismissed his disguise, appearing again as a shirtless sixteen-year-old. "Jugo and Suigetsu lead the charge. Do NOT kill any of them. I mean it, Suigetsu," he glared coldly at his white-haired companion. "After you two, I will enter, followed by Karin. Leave one man conscious. I will… interrogate… him."

Suigetsu for once merely nodded, rather than spitting out the sarcastic remark on the back of his tongue. Even he knew better than to taunt Sasuke when he got like this. Karin broke her stare at Sasuke's bare chest for long enough to nod in confirmation as well. Jugo looked as though he hadn't heard, but Sasuke knew better than to reiterate for him. Jugo was an enigma, but a predictable one.

Suigetsu and Jugo kicked in the door to the small, nondescript house. "Knock knock!" Suigetsu called, grinning. Jugo's arms turned to a scaly, bloated gray as they expanded. He led the group to a carpet, and proceeded to punch through it. He and Suigetsu dropped into the blackness. Sasuke activated his special eyes, the Sharingan, enabling him to see better in the dark than the others.

"Karin. How many are down there?"

"Counting dumb and dumber? Twenty. One of them is definitely Sound. I can feel a bit of Jugo and Orochimaru's chakra in with it."

"Are any of them notable at all besides that?"

"Uh… no. I can't sense much of anything unique." Karin adjusted her glasses.

"Good." With that, Sasuke began to climb down the ladder after them.

Suigetsu rushed a ninja, clearly a jonin by his attire, instantly upon hitting the bottom. The jonin could barely react as a tidal wave swept over him and reformed behind him into the white-haired youth. Suigetsu drew his massive sword and, to his chagrin, smacked the man in the head with the flat of his blade. "Stupid Sasuke," he muttered.

Another jonin charged Suigetsu, screaming out "Intruder! Intruder! Probably Mist!" He withdrew a kunai from his vest pocket and leapt at Suigetsu, obviously intending to stab him. Suigetsu grinned and dissolved into a puddle, creeping along the floor and reforming a few feet away as himself.

"Hm. No water here, so I guess I'll improvise!" He smirked at the man. _Water Style: Water Dragon!_ His left arm dissolved into water, then immediately reformed as a serpentine dragon, which flew at the Leaf jonin, hitting him square in the chest, fangs digging in as its watery jaws clamped down on him. Suigetsu used the appendage as a makeshift zipline, pulling him towards his target. This time, he sliced through the man's shoulder, severing his arm. Naturally, the man screamed in pain as blood poured from his arm.

A mechanical humming began to sound from the walls as lights flashed on, illuminating the room. The walls were metal, and the ones to Suigetsu's right were bloodstained from his fallen foe. A hallway stretched out ahead of him, leading to a door. The only other exit was a ladder up to the room he'd just left.

Jugo landed, having fallen slower than Suigetsu thanks to using his chakra as a sort of propulsion device. "Didn't Sasuke say no killing?" he asked as he surveyed the bloodstained walls and sword.

"He's not dead. Just missing an arm. Anyway, there's a door down there. Smash it."

Jugo shoved Suigetsu aside and extended what looked like jet engines from his arms. He launched chakra from them and broke into a full-tilt run at the door, bashing through the metal as though it were paper with the force of his punch.

"I will _never_ get used to him," Suigetsu muttered as he followed him, sword raised, into the room.

Upon reaching the bottom, Sasuke noticed two things. The first was the stirring Jonin in the corner. The second was the bleeding, likely already dead, Jonin by a hallway. He sighed, and shot a current of electricity through the stirring man, leaving the bleeding one to his fate.

He moved at a slow, methodical pace through the hallway, listening intently to the sounds of battle from the next room. _Fifteen of Leaf's finest versus those two… Heh. They should've brought more._

He stepped into the room. Suigetsu was holding his own against five men at once, flowing in and out of a solid state as he both avoided attacks and countered, and Jugo had expanded the south wall by at least a solid foot with the force of his punches, though he kept missing as the four he was fighting dodged his slow, telegraphed punches. _That's nine. There should be six more… ah._ Sasuke saw them, standing in formation. Five stood around the sixth, who Sasuke faintly recognized as Ibiki Morino, the proctor for the first stage of the Chunin exams.

"Another intruder!" Morino called as he saw Sasuke enter. "It's… by God, that's Sasuke Uchiha!"

Sasuke fought to keep from smiling as his name was spoken. He slowly approached the six in formation. He drew his sword, and his Sharingan flickered back and forth between the six, judging them and appraising them all. Alone, they would be no match for Sasuke. Together… they were still no match.

As he studied his opponents, one of the men Jugo fought ran at him, twin kunai in hand, clearly looking to make a name for himself. Sasuke, without so much as turning, cleanly severed both his hands with a single cut from his katana. Sasuke returned to a reverse-grip on the hilt, and charged the six men.

Four of them returned the charge. Sasuke smirked and ran a current of lightning chakra into the palm of his left hand, molding it into a sword. He "sliced" through the two in front, scorching a line across them and paralyzing them with the current. His actual sword found its home in the shoulder of the third man, and Sasuke used its leverage to increase the momentum of his double-legged kick to the sternum of the fourth, sending that one reeling backwards. He withdrew the sword as he adopted a typical Uchiah stance: the index and middle fingers of his left hand extended and in front of his mouth. He breathed out four small fireballs, each aimed at the man in the center of the remaining formation, Morino.

The guards to either side of Morino intercepted the attack, each unleashing a gust of wind from the palms of their hands. Sasuke fought back laughter as the air served only to fan the flames, raising their size. Out of options, the guard on the left dove in front of the flames, taking four burning shuriken to the chest for his leader. The right-hand guard let out a roar of anger and leapt at Sasuke, a blade of wind chakra forming in his right hand. Sasuke hopped back away from him and tossed a barrage of lightning-enhanced shuriken. The man dodged them fairly easily, and at last reached Sasuke. He slashed through the arrogant youth… only to watch the illusion fade as the real Sasuke plunged a sword into his back, purposefully missing any vitals. He withdrew the sword as he turned, glaring once again at Morino.

"You fight well, for a kid," Morino conceded, some of his self-assurance deflated after watching this "kid" take out six trained jonin in just a matter of seconds. "But I'm afraid you can't beat me. I'm not as affected by genjutsu." Morino cracked his knuckles and took a menacing step towards Sasuke.

_ Maggots oozed from the eye sockets of a severed head as it began to rot._ Morino clutched at his head. "It won't work, kid! Give it up!" _Entrails spilled from a cut to the man's stomach. The man laughed and pulled them out further. _Morino stumbled. _A child clasped a severed, withered hand. "Mamma? Mamma?" she cried… A thousand cuts had been made on him yet he smiled still, looking rather stupid as a chunk of skin was cut away from his shoulder… The man's face dripped with blood as he devoured the one who had been his brother… _

"This can stop anytime you like, Morino," Sasuke said coldly as Suigetsu finished off the last of his foes and Jugo the last of his. "Your subordinates are incapacitated or dead. You have no hope."

_A woman smiled pleasantly as her skin turned to ash, muscle and bone grotesquely mocking the human form… A family lay dead and in pieces at his feet, cut to mince by a smiling, pale man with long black hair and snakelike features, who called for another subject… A man's head was crushed, beaten open, his eyes hanging uselessly from the optic nerve, the pink of brains and blood staining the floor and walls around him…_

Morino fell to his knees. "No more! No more!" he screamed.

"I told you. This can stop any time you like. I'll even let you walk out of here. Just tell me where you're keeping Tayuya, and I'll be on my way."

"Tayuya?! She's here, three rooms down on the left-hand hall, please just make it end!" Tears were forming in Morino's eyes.

Sasuke's eyes flared red for another moment, then faded back to their usual black. Morino fell to his side, visibly shaken. Sasuke moved down the hallway, and motioned for Suigetsu and Jugo to follow.

The first cell contained a man none of the trio recognized: a gray-haired man, likely in his twenties. He seemed vaguely familiar to Sasuke, but that was it. He sat in the corner of his cell, frantically clawing at nothing. The second was empty, and the third contained a red-haired girl peeking curiously out the barred window on the cell's door. "You guy's Orochimaru's rescue party? Took ya long enough." Despite her apparent bravado, the girl was a wreck. Her hair was messy and wild, bruises and dirt covered her face, and her clothing was not only dirty, but torn.

Sasuke returned her gaze, and his eyes met hers. She tried to return the stare, but looked away after a moment. "You're remarkably spry for a dead girl," he said after a moment.

"Wait, you fuckers thought I was dead?!" The girl looked indignant. "As if that Sand bitch could kill _anyone_ with her weak-ass wind jutsu! All she managed to do was break my fuckin' legs, which hurt like a son of a bitch, but kill me?! HELL no!"

"My apologies. You're remarkably _talkative_ for a dead girl. Now, before we go, did you have any necessary gear?"

"Gear, huh?" _Tayuya watched as Morino broke her flute over his knee. "You're useless without this, aren't you?_ "Nah, nothing really. But who're these clowns? Are we the new Sound Four? I mean, Whitey over here looks as fucked-up as Sakon, but Big Man here isn't half as fat as Jirobo! And you, you're not nearly as obnoxious as Kidomaru."

Sasuke raised his eyebrow. _What have I done?_ Aloud, he said, "We're not the Sound Four. We're Taka, and we are currently unaffiliated with Sound. Whitey, as you called him is Suigetsu." Suigetsu gave a halfhearted mock salute. "Big Man is Jugo." Jugo studied the girl a bit. "I'm Sasuke Uchiha."

"You?!" Tayuya's face contorted into a scowl. "You're Sasuke?! You mother fucker! I was fucking tortured for _three years_ because of you!"

A feeling of guilt washed over him. _Because of me?_ "They… tortured you because of me?"

"They wanted to find you or some shit! I don't know! But how fucking dare you come here to rescue me when this is all your fucking fault?"

Sasuke mentally shook himself. "Their idiocy and persistence isn't my fault. What matters is that I'm breaking you out. Jugo?"

The large boy approached the steel door and simply pulled it out of the wall with brute strength. "Any friend of Kimimaro's is a friend of mine," he said as he moved back behind Sasuke.

"You're free to try to strike out on your own, if you wish," Sasuke said coldly, "but understand they'll just catch you again and bring you back here. If you want to survive… come with me."

Tayuya looked once again at the boy who had both caused her and saved her from years of torment. "As long as being shirtless isn't your team's uniform, I'm in."

* * *

_Jiraya is dead._ The words echoed in Naruto's mind as he walked, slowly, blindly, down the streets of his home village. _Jiraya is dead_.

The news had been given by an elderly-looking purple toad, which at first made Naruto think it was a joke. It was no joke. Sakura and Sai had expressed empty sympathy, of course. Tsunade had tried to keep her composure, but rage had blinded Naruto. _He should have been hokage, not you! Then he wouldn't have…_

Naruto walked past several people, including his old teacher, Iruka. If any of them spoke, he didn't hear it. He simply wandered, blind and deaf, only instinct keeping him from bumping into anything or anyone.

After a time, he found himself sitting on a park bench. How he got there, he didn't know, but there he was. He felt tears run down his face. Was he crying? He couldn't tell. He was simply numb. _Jiraiya is dead_…

"Naruto-kun…" a dark-haired girl in a light jacket sat beside him. Her eyes were pure white, the mark of the Hyuga clan.

Naruto simply stared forward. He paid her no mind, his thought still focused on Jiraya. He had seemed invincible, immortal.

"Naruto-kun!" The girl shook him a bit, gently. "Y-you cannot continue to mope like this! Everyone depends on you! I… I heard about Jiraya. But he wouldn't want this, would he? He would want you to be happy, to protect those you love! N-not mope…"

Naruto didn't budge. His eyes seemed devoid of life.

"Naruto-kun, I—" As she tried to continue, a loud explosion, not too far away, cut her off as the sky flashed brilliant cobalt.

* * *

"Why'd you blow it up?!" Karin shrieked as the five stood before the smoldering, electrified crater that had been Morino's torture chamber.

"To send Leaf a message," Sasuke replied casually as he rested his hand on his sword. "Sasuke Uchiha is back. Now… Taka. Mobilize. We move under cover of darkness."

Suigetsu raised his hand. "So, uh, where're we going, bossman?"

"We return to Nekobaa and gather supplies for Tayuya. After that, we gather as much information as we can on Madara Uchiha. I want to know what he's up to. Satisfied?"

"Hey, we have a plan that goes TWO steps ahead! Sasuke's learning!" Suigetsu grinned.

"Hey, not for nothing, but I've been cut off from chakra for a while. So, you know, I won't be able to leap through trees and shit. Can we wa— eh?!" Sasuke cut her off by picking her up and carrying her on his back. Without another word (outside of Tayuya's grumbled protests), Taka leapt off into the night.

* * *

Time no longer held any meaning for him, locked as he was with just himself. Though he still spoke to others through Yahiko, or, to get technical, Yahiko's corpse, Nagato himself stayed largely alone within his personal chambers. It could have been anywhere from an hour to a decade between his conversation with Madara and the current Akatsuki meeting, for all Nagato knew.

"Welcome, Akatsuki!" Madara said, likely beaming under his mask. "I trust you know why you're all here?"

"If we knew, why would we be here?" asked Kisame, a tall, imposing man with sharklike features and a wrapped sword upon his back. "The meeting was to decide where to go next, after all."

"Indeed," chimed in Konan, a soft-featured yet strangely harsh-looking woman with pale blue hair, who sat beside Pain. "Since the recruitment of Sasuke and his team failed, we are at a slight loss."

"It's of no consequence, really," chimed in the black half of Zetsu, a strange man who looked for all the world like half an Oreo stuck in a Venus fly trap. Evidently his two halves had different personalities, or something. Madara was quiet about what he was, and Pain never bothered to find out. "Sasuke would have been a helpful addition, but we don't really need him."

"Indeed. And it should be rather obvious from here," added the white half in a voice softer than the gravelly one his "brother" used. "We need to capture the eight- and nine-tails. As we cannot break sequence… we capture the eight-tails next."

"The eight-tails resides in Cloud," Pain observed. "Quite the walk from Rain."

"Then we haven't a moment to lose," Madara replied.

"Indeed."


End file.
